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Cyclists face increased injury risk

Deborah Gough

Trevor Abbott now only cycles on bike paths after being seriously injured in a collision with a truck on Beach Road. Photo: Ken Irwin

INJURIES to cyclists have more than doubled in eight years, with cyclists now 34 times more likely than an occupant of a car to be seriously injured, new research shows.

The study, published in the Journal of the Australasian College of Road Safety, found that serious cycling injuries reported by police had increased by 109 per cent from 2000 to 2008.

The paper's co-author, Deakin University senior lecturer Dr Jan Garrard, said police figures also showed an extraordinary 13-fold increased risk of serious injury for cyclists over car users, based on the average distances travelled by cars and bicycles.

When the figure for all serious injuries to cyclists, including crashes where police were not called, was taken into account, cyclists have 34 times the risk of car users of being injured

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Cyclists were also 4½ times more likely than a car occupant to die in an accident, the research showed. Dr Garrard said police figures showed the proportion of car occupants seriously injured on the road had dropped by 5 per cent during the same period, while the cyclist proportion of serious injuries rose by 3.5 per cent.

Dr Garrard said governments had concentrated on laws to improve driver safety but not cyclist safety. She accused them of a ''cycling blind spot''.

She conceded that bicycle lanes were unaffordable on every main road but said other safety measures could include dropping the speed limit to 30 km/h on suburban roads, improving driver attitudes, giving cyclists traffic light priority to proceed before lights turn green, and teaching bicycle skills to adults and pupils.

She called for the legal onus for road safety to be changed so that it fell on the road user more likely to cause the most damage in an accident. Dr Garrard said the big increase in cycling injuries could not be explained by an increase in the number of cyclists.

There are no statistics on how many more bikes are on the road in Melbourne during the period of increase in cycling injuries but census data showed a 79 per cent increase in bicycle commuting during a similar period and national recreational figures reveal a 34 per cent rise in bicycle use. Both figures are lower than the 109 per cent increase in cycling injuries.

Bicycle Victoria does a yearly count of cyclists but that is limited to the inner city, on one day, at the morning peak. The last three years have had yearly increases of up to 20 per cent.

Bicycle Victoria spokesman Garry Brennan rejected the claim that cycling injuries had massively increased. He said while the count of cyclists on St Kilda Road had doubled during the study period, injuries on that route remained static.

''We believe the crash rate is decreasing and that the main factor is that drivers are adapting to the large number of riders on the road,'' Mr Brennan said.

A cyclist of 12 years, Trevor Abbott, 59, remembers coming off his bike on to the road after being hit by a removal truck on Beach Road in December. ''I thought my time was up,'' Mr Abbott said.

The driver, charged with dangerous driving, was fined $270 and lost three demerit points. Mr Abbott said the penalty did not equal his pain of multiple upper body fractures, severe bruising and 10 months of physiotherapy.

He returned to commuting after three months but just on bicycle paths. He rides on the road with a social cycling group. ''I think any change in driver attitudes has been minor,'' Mr Abbott said. ''From my experience and from talking to other riders, I wouldn't think it was any safer.'' He said that drivers and cyclists made mistakes and both could benefit from education and skills training.

Car v bike

■ Injuries to cyclists have more than doubled in eight years, with cyclists now 34 times more likely than an occupant of a car to be seriously injured.